


To End All Wars

by E350tb



Series: Unauthorised Tales from the Titanic [4]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Boer War, Gen, RMS Titanic, Titanic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 04:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17480891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E350tb/pseuds/E350tb
Summary: The clouds of war are gathering, and Donald Fryman has no intend to be there when they arrive.Based on CaptainJZH's excellent 'Everything In The World Was Standing Still.'





	To End All Wars

**Author's Note:**

> It's the Fryman family!
> 
> Thanks to [realfakedoors]() for proofreading and [CaptainJZH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJZH/pseuds/CaptainJZH) for letting me sticky tape my additions onto his story!

**To End All Wars**

Some crossed the Atlantic for business, others for pleasure. Some seeked a better life, or were motivated by curiosity for the way people lived ‘across the pond.’ Donald Fryman crossed the Atlantic to escape the apocalypse.

Everywhere he looked, he saw the signs of the eminent future -- or, maybe, the lack thereof. Reality existed in the margins. It was in international deals; Entente Cordiale, Triple Alliance, Anglo-Russian Agreement - the development of two arms camps tenuously keeping the peace. It was in the instability in the Balkans, where Bismarck had claimed it would all begin. It was in the Berlin to Baghdad Railway, the Suez Canal, Marrakesh and Algiers, the jealously guarded pipelines used to bleed colonial possessions dry. Most noticeably it was in the battleship race, that terrible seesaw between Britain and Germany - _Dreadnought_ met with _Nassau_ met with _St. Vincent_ met with _Kaiser_ met with _Orion_ , and on and on and on in an absurd race to master the seas.

Most didn’t want to think about it, but Fryman could see it - the gathering storm of war, unthinkable in scale, was building over Europe. And he had no intention to let his sons be caught in the rain.

His oldest, Ronaldo, was pushing eighteen. It was all too easy for the father to see his son in fatigues, sporting the ragged army khaki as he was cut down by rifle fire in some godforsaken corner of the world. And if the war carried on as long as he feared it would, it would consume Peedee too.

So here he was, aboard the _Titanic_ , bound as far away as possible. He remembered a song he’d heard a long time ago; _farewell to old England forever…_

He’d used up every favour and asset he had to get here; old friends from South Africa who now sat in high places, people in Hackney who owed him money, and what remained of both his and his ex-wife’s savings. It had gotten him to First Class - on E Deck, sure, but still First Class. There was little certainty waiting for him in America, but he had his smarts, he had his sons, and most importantly, they’d be out of the fire.

His children would not die in a pointless war. This he could finally be sure of.

* * *

It was after dinner, the night after leaving Queenstown, and Fryman found himself in the musky air of the smoking room on A Deck. He sat alone, but a few tables away he could hear another man in animated conversation - Gracie or something, Fryman believed, in conversation with that Strauss fellow. Fryman didn’t pretend to know who they were or what they had done - he’d never kept up with the papers.

They were discussing the Civil War, as far as Fryman could tell - intricate details of battles and generals and tactics (he mentioned a battle at a place called Chickamauga a _lot_ ). For his part, he tried to tune them out - he hated, _hated_ talking about war. It brought him to dark places, to dark memories, to places he wished he’d never been.

It brought him back to South Africa.

_There’s an officer - he can’t even be twenty years old - and he’s swaggering behind them with a hand on his holstered Webley. His uniform is immaculate, moustache trimmed - he looks like he’s walked out of a Boy’s Own adventure novel. His face twists in disgust as he regards the section of men crouched in the dry river bed._

_“Come on, you lot!” he shouts, and Fryman is caught off-guard by how high-pitched his voice is - god, is he even eighteen? - “You won’t defeat the Boer by hiding in a ditch! Show yourself! Show them you’re true En-”_

_The officer’s helmet flies off at the sound of the crack - there’s nothing left to support it. The dry river bed is suddenly stained a deep red._

_They don’t get out until nightfall. They don’t take the officer with them. Fryman never sees him again, and forces him out of mind. The boy’s face will not resurface for many years - not until it returns in his dreams._

Fryman massaged his temples - he felt rather tired all of a sudden. He could dimly hear Gracie having started on a new subject.

“Quantrill’s Raiders, yes. I believe the British employed something similar in the South African War… what did they call them again? The… Veldt Something?”

_The Bushveldt Carbineers._

_“...I am giving you a direct order, Sergeant, and you will comply…”_

_“The only good Boer’s a dead Boer, quite frankly.”_

_“We had no Red Book… we got them and shot them under Rule 303…”_

“...excuse me… excuse me, are you quite alright?”

Fryman jumped and turned. Gracie was looking over him with a quizzical expression.

“Um… my apologies,” Fryman said, getting to his feet, “I think it might be time to turn in.”

He walked away without another word.

**Author's Note:**

> The lyric 'farewell to Old England forever' is how the song 'Bound for Botany Bay' opens.
> 
> The war Fryman fought in is of course the Boer War (or the South African War), which pitted Britain against the Boer Republics from 1899 to 1902. The specific period depicted in the flashback was called the 'Black Week', in which the British Army suffered a series of catastrophic defeats in the span of a single week. A 'Webley' is a revolver, chambered in .455 ammunition - it's probably better known for being used in the First World War.
> 
> The Bushveldt Carbineers were real, but we might go into them a bit more later. The 'got them and shot them' quote is also real.
> 
> Colonel Archibald Gracie and Isador Strauss were both real passengers, and did spend a good deal of time together discussing the Civil War.


End file.
